


Initiative

by Feyland



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Established Relationship, Fantasy Violence, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13840005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feyland/pseuds/Feyland
Summary: Grantaire leads his friends on an adventure into the pits of Hell in a game of Dungeons and Dragons.Companion piece to Devil's Backbone.





	Initiative

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mardisoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardisoir/gifts).



> I'm going to go ahead and pretend that this is all because of mardisoir and not because I'm obsessed with D&D and can't stop thinking about these dorks playing it. 
> 
> Set post-Devil's Backbone, but can totally be read as a stand-alone piece. 
> 
> Warning for fantasy violence, monsters, and depictions of Hell.

“You pass through the seven gates from the palace, to the edge of the cliff that marks the border of Limbo. From below, you can hear what sounds like a massive windstorm. You can’t tell if the wailing is just the wind, or if there are voices underneath it.”

“Hang on, I want to see if I can tell that or not,” Joly said, interrupting Grantaire’s monologue.

“Alright, roll Perception.”

Joly shook the die in his cupped hands, blowing on it for luck, as he always did. 

“16!” 

“Alright, you can tell that the wailing is, shockingly, coming from the people who are in literal Hell. Anyway, before you can start down into the second circle, Virgil holds out a hand to make you pause. ‘I must warn you,’ he says, ‘I can guide you through the horrors of this place, but as I have no corporeal form, I cannot help you stave off any enemies. If you are attacked and killed, you will be trapped in that circle forever. Be wary. The living were never meant to see this place.’”

“So basically whenever we get into a fight, he’s going to be on the sidelines just yelling, like, ‘KICK HIS ASS!’ at us?” Bossuet asked.

“Oh, for sure,” said Grantaire, grinning. “And you know he’ll be all, ‘If I were alive I would have beaten that zombie in one move, too bad I can’t prove it.’”

Gavroche let out an impatient breath, rolling his eyes. “Can we PLEASE get to the part where we fight some things? We’ve been talking to those boring old dudes for like YEARS.”

“Okay, fine, geez, forgive me for all my creative world building.”

“You mean the world building you lifted from Dante?” Jehan said, a wicked smile on their face. 

“Oh shut up Jehan. You almost peed yourself when you figured out what I was doing,” Grantaire shot back. “ _Anyway_. You start down the steep, narrow path. As you descend, the howling gets louder, and you can feel the force of the wind picking up with every step. By the time you reach the bottom, it’s blowing so hard that your speed is reduced by half. Around you, you can see the tortured spirits being blown around roughly, alone with a significant amount of dust. Their cries combine with the howling wind, resulting in a horrible symphony of hopelessness that drowns out any other sound.”

“I want to roll Perception,” Montparnasse said. Beside him, Jehan beamed. It was the first campaign session they had managed to lure Montparnasse to. A new arc of the longstanding adventure Grantaire had started over a year before seemed the perfect place to integrate someone new. Montparnasse had danced around the suggestion of joining for several weeks, but Jehan had noticed the increasing interest in which Montparnasse had listened to their retellings of sessions. 

 

“I wish I had had the opportunity to play when I was a kid,” they had sighed as they lay in bed with Montparnasse one night. “I played a lot of pretend, but it was mostly by myself. Sometimes I still get amazed that I have friends who like to do dorky shit with me. I’m not the weirdo talking to themself, making things up alone anymore. I’m a weirdo in a group, which is much more fun.”

Montparnasse had kissed their forehead, letting his thoughts take shape as Jehan fell asleep curled into his side. The next morning, he had dropped down next to them on the couch and asked for help filling out his character sheet. 

Soon after, Montparnasse’s tiefling warlock joined Jehan’s drow ranger, Bossuet’s dwarf fighter, Joly’s elf cleric, and Gavroche’s dragonborn barbarian in an adventure of Grantaire’s making. A fitting one, Montparnasse had said, since he was already destined to end up in Hell. 

 

“That’s a 17 plus 2,” he said to Grantaire, smirking. 

“Alright, fine, you hear under _very loud screaming wind_ the sound of something scraping alone the stone, like massive nails. Do you let anyone know?”

“Obviously. Ranavalona is true neutral, not true idiot.” 

“Alright, so you say, ‘Hey I hear some weird claw-like noises,’ just as a stench of decay hits you. Out of the dust, a figure is looming. It’s a twisted version of a humanoid, huge and skeletal, gaunt skin stretched over sharp bone. It has wings like a giant insect, talons as long as short swords on its hands and feet, and a long, skeletal, scorpion tail tipped with red. This is a bone devil, and it’s your welcoming committee to Hell. Roll initiative.”

“Oh shiiiiiiit,” Bossuet said as they all reached for their dice. 

Jehan snuck a glance at Montparnasse as he scrolled through the spell list on his phone. The intensity on his face made them smile. As flippant as he could be, Jehan recognized the ambition and competitiveness breaching the facade. 

 

“Joly, you’re up,” Grantaire said once an order had been established. 

“Okay, I cast Magic Circle around us. It creates a 10 foot wide, 20 foot high cylinder around us. The fiend type creature can’t enter the circle through non-magical means, and has disadvantage on attacks against any of us while we’re inside it.”

“Sweet. Nice set up,” Grantaire said. “Gav, you go.”

“I go into a rage and charge it!” 

“If you do that, you’ll be out of Joly’s protective circle.”

“Whatever, man! Archibald Cunningham Pickles ain’t afraid of no bone devil!” 

“Alright, roll to hit.”

The delight in Gavroche’s face as he landed blows on the devil was infectious, with even Montparnasse cracking a smile his way. Gavroche had been giddy with mirth when Montparnasse had joined the group, all too ready to mock the learning curve of a new player. Even so, there was pride in his expression when Montparnasse asked him for advice, drawing on Gavroche’s frankly astounding memory for details from the Player’s Handbook.

“The bone devil is going to go next-”

“What’s its name?” Bossuet interrupted. 

“Uh, Virgil pops up beside you and says, ‘Oh shit sons, this is Cromslor the Foul’, and then he peaces out again because he's totally useless to you right now other than apparently having a great memory of the name of every single monster in the underworld. Anyway, Cromslor is going to go, and he has three attacks. First one’s aimed at you, Gav. He’s gonna try and swipe you with his claws. 14 against AC?”

“Ha! Miss! Eat shit, Cromslor!” Gavroche crowed. 

“Well then he’s aiming his second hit your way too…and that’s a 22. I assume that get you?”

“Shit!” 

“Watch your fucking mouth, kid. Cromslor rakes his huge, dirty, unmanicured claws across your chest, catching you for 8 slashing damage.”

“I have resistance to slashing! So that’s only 4! Suck it, Cromslor!” 

“Yeah, Cromslor, get wrecked,” echoed Bossuet. 

“Just for that, his last attack is coming your way, Bo,” Grantaire said with a wicked grin. “And he saved his best for last. He’s going to try and get you with his horrifying bone tail. That’s an 18.”

“That hits,” sighed Bossuet.

“But he has disadvantage because of Joly’s spell so…oh, dang, that’s a nat 20; he gets you either way. He whips his butt around, and just fuckin nails you, man. That’s, shit, 13 piercing damage, and I need you to make a constitution save to see if you’re poisoned or not.”

“Dwarves have advantage against poison…ha! 16! Does that save?”

“Shockingly, for once in your goddamn life, you actually saved against something,” Grantaire said. “He still knocked you on your ass, though. Don’t get an ego over it. Montparnasse, your turn.”

“I cast…Hunger of Hadar. A dark gateway opens in a 20-foot sphere around the devil. It’s blinded and deafened as it’s encased in a warp of time and space. It takes 2d6 cold damage, and it has to succeed a dexterity save or else take acid damage from the ‘milky, otherworldly tentacles’ that rub against it.”

A beat of silence, followed by Grantaire’s quiet, “holy shit.”

“That’s some Lovecraftian material right there,” said Jehan.

“I picked the wrong class,” said Bossuet in awe.

“Parnasse is into tent porn!” Gavroche exclaimed, delighted.

“Gav! You shouldn’t know what that is!” Joly moaned. 

 

The game descended into madness. Hysterical laughter and the shrieks of being too deeply invested in the fantasy filled the apartment. Jehan’s lightning arrows managed to hit their target, but also caught Bossuet’s character at the same time. Wails of betrayal were voiced as Bossuet swore revenge, a promise that was challenged on account of his poor hit record, immediately exemplified as he rolled a critical fail on his attack against the bone devil. By the time Gavroche landed the final blow, cleaving the creature’s rotting head from its neck, the group was nearly in tears with laughter, working to catch their breaths as though they had fought the battle themselves. 

Montparnasse’s defences, Jehan noticed, were nowhere to be seen.

**Author's Note:**

> So back in Chapter 4 of Devil's Backbone, I let Jehan play some D&D with their friends as like. the last light moment of the whole damn fic. So I guess now here's my version of fluff?? 
> 
> I hope this is at least somewhat accessible to folks who don't play D&D - lemmie know?
> 
> I might continue this a bit, because it's either that or I launch my own campaign of an Inferno-based setting.


End file.
